This Election Is A Once-In-A-Generation Event. Reform Can't Afford To Lose.

Momentum is on Reform's side. The party can either go on the offensive and mold the debate in their favor or cower at the first sign of resistance and cede ground to a hostile media apparatus.

Out of all the politicians running in this election, Farage displays the most humility, perseverance and zeal. While he isn’t a paragon of virtue, he is often willing to stand his ground on contentious issues, even when he faces backlash from the united front of the establishment, as was seen following his comments on the Ukraine-NATO fiasco. The fact that he did not waiver or cower, as most would have done under such intense pressure, but instead stood triumphantly and defended his position is commendable.

Yet, despite those attributes, over the last week of the campaign, Farage has stumbled by making several ill-conceived errors that threaten to erase the momentum carrying Reform. From the disorganised response to the MSM’s challenge of his foreign policy to the inability to control low-tier candidates running under the party’s banner, this week’s controversies have stolen the shine from a promising, burgeoning political revolution.

The collective British Right doesn’t seem to grasp the danger presented here. UKIP could afford to put up un-vetted, no-hoper candidates because it was an exercise in vote diversion. No one, not even UKIP’s founders, were delusional enough to believe the party was ever going to win a significant number of seats, let alone enough to emerge as a main party. It was a rebuke to the orthodoxy that had dominated British society for years, amplifying a Eurosceptic message, an endeavour it succeeded at.

This election feels different. Unlike 2015, the Conservatives are collapsing in support and are vulnerable to losing ground to a new insurgency on their right flank. The potential for them being usurped as the main custodian of conservatism in the UK has never looked more fertile. However, if the game has changed to the extent that Reform actually stands a chance of breaking through, then it simply can't afford low calibre candidates to drag their reputation down.

Reform has a decision to make here. It either accepts that its candidates will have views that are unpalatable to the media (and be prepared to defend them to the hilt), or be prepared to lose half or all of its MPs in the first year to political assassination. But we know how this goes. On matters such as this, Farage always folds at the first challenge. He's still playing the game by pre-Brexit rules. He still thinks media respectability is important. That only invites more of the same behaviour from the media. Moreover, that allows the media to frame the boundaries of what is morally acceptable discourse, so we'll end up not having the debates we need to have, and Farage will be trained by the system to stay within those parameters. Instead of challenging them on issues they feel comfortable on, Farage and Reform’s other leaders will be forced on the defensive, ceding ground to a hostile entity that seeks to destroy his brand of politics.  

One term of serial embarrassments for Reform makes it look like a one-man-band novelty act, and one that is incapable of finding any talent equal or better than Farage, and the momentum will collapse. In order to avoid this, Reform is going to have to either invest in proper vetting and start cultivating some serious talent, or it's going to have to stop caving in to the first sign of resistance and say its candidates are entitled to their views and if the media doesn't like that then tough. Sacking candidates they way they're doing here is like throwing chum into shark infested waters. The bottom line is that the establishment is not going to rollover and let outsiders get a foothold. It will fight to the death, and use every dirty trick in the book. If Farage is going to walk into every ambush and cave in any time some heat is applied, then the Right has already lost.

This is why the party actually need a harder line on immigration. It can't be a media-friendly outfit with moderate policies. It has to be unapologetically nationalist and be ready to speak plainly about British identity, otherwise it will end up sacking exactly the kind of candidates its members actually want, and pretty soon you end up alienating your activist base who end up spilling off into yet another hard right splinter party, which has no feasible way of becoming relevant.

The kind of amateurism we're seeing from Reform classic is Farage. Nobody can deny his media presence and his capacity to hold court, but when it comes to leading a movement, the lack of attention to detail, and the absence of a strategy will prove to be a fatal liability.